Tzadok nodded. “Yes, you’ve been admitting your own cowardice for as long as I can remember, Cousin.”
Truth told, Tzadok didn’t like magic either. It was the domain of women and weak men who couldn’t win a battle on their own. But it was also very powerful and not something which he could ever allow himself to underestimate.
Tzadok knew he could win any fight. But magic was something else entirely. He was as helpless against it as any other man was to his hammer.
He was not a man who liked feeling powerless. It pissed him off.
“I see.” Tandrea nodded, processing the situation. “Then I think going is your only option here. Explain your case and hope for the best. And if it goes badly, at least their leaders will be right there, should you be forced to kill them, right?” She pursed her lips in thought. “Better to get them all at once than to drag things out hunting them down after they scurry away.”
Tzadok turned to look at her in amazement, not expecting such a coldblooded idea from such a pretty little thing.
She was… weird.
“Whatever, but I’m still not going.” Xiphos announced, like anyone gave a shit. “I’m staying right here with my woman.” He took on a serious expression. “I need to devote myself entirely to ensuring that my Heart feels loved and appreciated. And we need to be making children at the moment, obviously.”
Tandrea made her delighted “Awww” sound again, as if that idea was somehow endearing.
Tzadok glared at his cousin in total disgust.
“You’re jealous.” Xiphos crossed his arms over his chest in defiance, recognizing Tzadok’s views on the matter. “What kind of father would you be? Half the time you’re yelling and the other half you’re sulking.” He sniffed indignantly. “I’ve already assured Dory that I will be a very supportive father and that our children will grow strong and powerful in an environment of pure attention and unending supportive love.”
“You just fucking met her!” Tzadok protested. “It’s not like you and she are…”
Xiphos gasped in horror, interrupting him. “I’ve known her almost as long as you’ve known Tandy and…”
“Yelling solves nothing!” Kobb protested. “We should focus on…”
Tzadok shouted right over him. “My uncle has opened up his doors to a soulless enemy and my cousin is living in some kind of delusion where he thinks that woman isn’t just using him to escape her uncaring husband!” Tzadok put his head in his hands. “What has become of my people!?!”
“I’m her husband!” Xiphos pointed at him. “That other asshole went off into the mountains, which means he’s dead already. And if he’s not, I’ll soon make sure of it. But you just can’t stand to see anyone else happy, because you’re a miserable person! You always have been! Even when we were kids, always off crying in the shadows somewhere because your mother was mean to you and you had no friends because all the other kids were afraid of you.”
Tandrea looked interested in that. “I think we’re really communicating here.” She decided. “It’s very healthy. Please, Xiphos, tell us more about Tzadok’s hidden emotional turmoil.”
Tzadok’s teeth ground together in growing fury as he glared at his cousin. “I. never. cried.”
“Do you think that could be the root of his anger control issues?” Tandrea asked Xiphos, pursing her lips in thought.
“For the record, I have no enemies.” Kobb felt the need to interject. “I only have friends and potential friends. That is how I choose to live my life.”
“Noble.” Tzadok deadpanned. “But complete horseshit, as usual.”
“Never cried?” Xiphos snorted in contempt at Tzadok’s claim, ignoring the argument with Kobb. “Ha! Do you know how many nights my parents had to cook you dinner because you were starving!?! And sew up your many wounds!?!”
“Like a kicked puppy that no one loved.” Tandrea summarized, a small frown crossing her face. “I thought as much.”
Tzadok ignored that, continuing to yell at his uncle while his cousin babbled, and his prize was off on some new delusion. “You can’t be friends with someone determined to kill you!”
“Why didn’t his mother feed him?” Tandrea asked Xiphos, sounding upset. “Surely there was enough food.”
Kobb continued on his topic, shaking his head. “I’ve made friends with dozens of people who were determined to kill me, Nephew.”
“There was plenty of food, but in case you haven’t noticed, Tzadok has never been especially popular in our circle.” Xiphos explained. “Frankly, the only people who can stand him are Kobb and I. Everyone else thinks he’s a violent fool who brings only disaster and bloody carnage. He’s like a really angry monkey you keep around simply because it periodically goes ape-shit on people you don’t like. When you’re not fighting anyone, you don’t want to see or deal with it. It should just be off somewhere doing angry monkey shit and leaving you alone. So, my parents had to feed him because his own…”
Tzadok turned to refocus on Xiphos. “It doesn’t count anyway, because your parents’ food sucks. Now shut up and stop…”
“…people hate what they are afraid of.” Kobb continued, still on the topic of his dark-haired harpy. “And I am no longer interested in scaring anyone. The girl is like a cave snake, striking at any sound in the dark. Because she is afraid. Not just of us, but of the world itself. She does not know what her place in it is. She is still discovering her own power. Her own heart. And I do not hold someone’s fear against them. Instead, I will take her hand as an equal and a friend, and when she is ready, I will help her from that self-imposed darkness. And then set her off on her way, back to her kin, a more contented and confident creature.”
“That is a beautiful sentiment, Uncle.” Tzadok complimented dryly. “Truly. Except, for the obvious fact that snakes don’t have hands!” He shook his own hands in the air to demonstrate. “You can’t take her hand, she’s just going to bite yours!”
Kobb’s contented smile faded as he considered that. He straightened his robe. “In my metaphor, snakes have hands.”
Tzadok rolled his eyes. “You’re not even taking this seriously!”
“I am not afraid of death.”
“Fear or not, dead is dead.”
“If you think the woman is afraid, why don’t you do something to reassure her?” Tandrea asked Kobb.
He held up his injured arm, as if demonstrating the result. “She is a girl who defines herself and her own world. She views attempts at compassion as aggressive.” He shook his head. “She is an injured flower and she needs time and space to blossom on her own terms.”
“’Injured flower’!?!” Tzadok cried, literally choking he was so indignant. “What the fuck are you even talking about!?! She is a complete…”
“I almost felt bad for him.” Xiphos reminisced to Tandrea while Tzadok was screaming. “I mean, Tzadok was always taking one beating or another. Tried to fight every kid in the village at once, for some silly reason. But in the end, he won anyway. Because you don’t fuck with an angry stupid monkey. It’s willing to take shit to levels which no normal person would even dream of. An angry monkey is going to bite your fucking face off if you look at it wrong, whether you’re a man, woman or beast. Honestly, he’s never been especially bright and…”
“What are you telling her?” Tzadok refocused on his idiot cousin, instantly forgetting the dark-haired woman’s crimes and his uncle’s lunacy. “Stop filling her beautiful head with your detestable lies, deceiver!”
“I have been the bad guy.” Kobb declared. “Many times. I don’t want to be that anymore. Especially not to a frightened woman, far from home.” He nodded to himself, already convinced of his own words. “Fear is magic left over from the beginning of the world, when the gods fought The Terrible Battle. Fear is a toxic spell they abandoned on the battlefield, because they could not contain it either. It fogs the mind and controls the body, then it spreads to everyone around you. Fear is too powerful a weapon for man or god once
it’s released, much too devastating. But it has no hold on me or how I live my life.” He leaned forward, his voice serious. “I do not make fear my master, and so I am safe from its wrath.”
“You’re insane. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed it before.” Tzadok gestured to his prize, who was busy talking to Xiphos while heedlessly taste-testing random herbs, as if searching for poisonous ones in the most ill-advised way possible. “No wonder you like Tandrea so much! The two of you look out at the world, seeing some fantastical illusion which is created solely inside your own minds!” He threw his arms up in exasperation. “The two of you could be on fucking fire and all you’d say is something like,” he took on a dreamy enchanted tone as he looked around the tent as if it were a wonderful dream brought to life, “‘Well, at least we’re not cold on such a beautiful day!’”
“I find that he’s remarkably intelligent, actually.” Tandrea declared passionately to Xiphos, sounding vaguely insulted on Tzadok’s behalf. “If other people can’t see that too, then they’re just…”
“Chox has seen fit to grant me peace in my old age and I mean to appreciate it.” Kobb decided, talking over her.
“Old age?” Tandrea interrupted, stopping her sentence to Xiphos dead in its tracks and sounding amused. “Riiight.” She snorted in dismissal of the idea, apparently agreeing that Kobb was nowhere near “old.” Then she finished her previous thought to Xiphos. “…morons.”
Xiphos frowned, confused by that, since he’d lost track of the conversation. Because he was a simpleton who didn’t pay attention. “Huh?”
“Peace?” Tzadok arched an eyebrow, following up his prize’s point on the matter with his uncle. “We’re at war with two different kingdoms and an entire clan of our own people. Possibly more.”
“Chox dumped all that on you though.” Kobb pointed at him. “Me? Me, he just wants to relax and look at pretty flowers. He wants to reward me for my faith.”
“Which goes right back to what Tandrea was saying about the problems of your growing heresy, cousin!” Xiphos exclaimed excitedly, as if it neatly brought the matter back into focus. “That’s why you’re unhappy! You’ve abandoned your culture, you stupid godless bastard.”
“My people’s culture was what got me locked in a hut and almost burned alive with my mother’s corpse.” Tzadok shot back. “I think I’ve had enough with ’culture’ for the time being, thanks.”
“But then Chox gave you Tandy as an apology for that.” Kobb argued. “He gave you your reward and He gave me mine. Peace and serenity, in my twilight years.”
Tzadok rolled his eyes. “Chox told you this himself, that he was giving you peace, did he? Chox?”
“Not in so many words,” his uncle admitted, “but I was able to ascertain his sacred intent from the circumstances.”
Tzadok shook his head in disgust. “Sometimes it’s very easy to understand why so many people in this kingdom dislike you, Uncle.”
Xiphos snorted. “Yeah, and they just fucking adore you, right, Cousin?”
“I’m not even talking to you anymore.” Tzadok waved a dismissive hand at the idiot. “Go complain to ‘Dory’ about it, because I’m not listening. Your insults and obscene lies might as well be the meaningless howl of the wind.”
Xiphos clapped his hands together, apparently believing that proved his point. “Heeeeeere we go… more whining, from the Lord of Crying. I’d so missed your constant tears. My mother barely recognizes you when you aren’t weeping. She says that all of the salt in The Great Nothing is from your goddamned tears!” He pointed at Tandrea, still glaring at Tzadok. “I don’t blame Tandy for ignoring you. It’s not right for a man to have so many emotions. It shows weakness. It must be like Tandrea gaining a sister, you’re so womanly soft!”
Tzadok flashed him an obscene gesture. “Fuck you, Xiphos! I don’t…”
“And he just redirects all of that pain and emotional isolation into anger, which he projects onto other people.” Tandrea agreed solemnly. “I’ve noticed that too.”
Xiphos shouted over them both. “You yell all the fucking time because…”
“…care if you are family,” Tzadok threatened, “I’m gonna…”
“Hey!” Tandrea snapped, stopping the argument in its tracks. “Calm down.” She touched Tzadok’s shoulder. “You don’t need to be angry all the time, you know. Especially not with the people who love you.”
Tzadok pointed at his cousin. “He started it!”
Xiphos gasped in horror again. “I did not!” He pointed back at Tzadok. “He did! Tandy, it was him! You saw!”
“I don’t care who started it, but I’m ending it.” She announced calmly. “We aren’t going to fight amongst ourselves.”
“Umm… since when is it ‘we’?” Xiphos asked in curiosity. “Not that I’m…”
Tzadok simply growled at him, a deep unhappy sound because the man would dare suggest that Tandrea didn’t belong everywhere Tzadok was.
Xiphos pointed at him again. “He’s starting it again, Tandy! See!?! See!?! He’s fucking up our proper debate procedure! Make him stop!”
“Tandy belongs with us because my nephew has Claimed her, and that’s been a sacred mechanism of Chox’s will since time began.” Kobb informed them all, once more the benevolent voice of authority in the world. “My own sister kidnapped her mate and Claimed him, so it’s rather a family tradition.” He pursed his lips, as a new thought occurred to him. “Sure, she ended up drowning him in the river for trying to escape her, but the point is the same.”
Tzadok leaned forward towards Xiphos, still arguing with his cousin. “Your problem has always…” He paused as he processed his uncle’s words. “Wait… Mom told me that Dad went back to his home kingdom to live with his people. She said he’d be happy because they had a beautiful farm on the river or something.”
“Yeeeah… your mother said a lot of things, Nephew.” Kobb intoned somberly. “Most of which were blatant falsehoods.” He shook his head. “As role models go, she wouldn’t be my first choice for you.”
Tzadok paled over the news. “She killed… Dad?”
“Oh, shit.” Xiphos made a face. “Heeeere comes the flood again…”
“You’re getting on my last nerve, you little dog-shit.” Tzadok snapped at him, sorrow and shock forgotten. “I’m already killing five kingdoms filled with people this month…”
“Six.” Kobb corrected. “Don’t forget the Hardmen.”
“…I’ll gladly add you to the list as well!” Tzadok finished.
Xiphos looked at Tandrea for a ruling, making a small helpless sound and gesturing to Tzadok as if to point out Tzadok’s unacceptable behavior.
Tandrea shook her head. “You were completely out of line, Xiphos. He received some emotionally upsetting news and you mocked his entirely understandable distress.” She judged. “I think you owe The Lord of Salt an apology.”
Xiphos looked deeply unhappy about that idea. “Sorry.” He murmured.
“I don’t think he heard you, Xiphos.” Tandrea admonished. “Proper enunciation is an important part of civility.” She gestured with her hands, as if tracking the path of the words from her chest and out of her mouth. Tzadok was suddenly distracted, his eyes tracing back and forth between her breasts and lips, where her hands had gestured. He was torn over which was more deserving of his attention. Both certainly had their own unique appeal. “Clear and understandable projection is one of the main ways we can avoid being misunderstood.” His prize finished.
“I am sorry I pointed out that you cry a lot, cousin.” Xiphos repeated, as if reluctantly reciting a speech he’d just learned and hoped to receive praise for. “I am sure that fact has little to do with your tendency towards manic violence, don’t worry. And it is definitely not something which the other warriors think of as unmanly weakness.”
Tzadok somehow tore his gaze away from his prize and smiled at Xiphos sarcastically. “I’m sorry I drew attention to the fact that you’re a useless dog-fuc
ker who is now merely the backup husband for a total stranger, cousin.”
“I think you two are missing the point here.” Tandrea scolded. “That’s not how we should talk.”
“I understand what you were trying to say, Tandy.” Kobb announced with no small amount of self-satisfaction. “Chox teaches us all to speak clearly and without fear.”
“Shut up, Uncle.” Tzadok snapped. “Stop trying to win points with My Prize and focus on keeping the Keeper of Your Heart from burning us all to death in our sleep.”
“I’ve taken to hiding at night, for that very reason.” Xiphos informed them, a note of sadness in his tone, like he missed sleeping in a bed. “His woman waits until we are at our weakest to pounce, like a great jungle cat.”
“She’s a scared little girl, I don’t know why everyone wants me to humble her or force her to become what I want.” Kobb sounded genuinely insulted on the girl’s behalf. “We are not made stronger by making others weaker, and we are not made less because of another’s opinion of us. Those are the words of Chox!”
“Oh, fuck that!” Tzadok snorted, spreading his arms wide. “No, no, fuck that! I’ve never heard anyone say that Chox said that! You’re just making shit up now because you don’t want the hassle of dealing with that little lunatic!”
“I want you to change her behavior because she’s your woman and I’m afraid for my life!” Xiphos cried. “Every night I fall asleep afraid that…”
“Chox did too say that!” Kobb yelled over him. “Don’t you tell me what Chox did and did not say, boy, I was his follower before you were…”
Tandrea held up her hand and let out a calming breath, as if demonstrating the usefulness of the practice. They quieted down immediately, argument forgotten. “We are all going to sit here and have a nice conversation, okay?” She informed them softly.
The room fell into silence.
Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian Page 19